Montalcino

Benvenuto Brunello Arrives in London Profiling the Sensational New 2021 Vintage Releases…

~ Greg Sherwood MW ~ Leave a comment

Welcome to Benvenuto Brunello, the celebrated international wine tasting premiere that is held annually in the heart of Montalcino. In 2026, Benvenuto Brunello arrived in London! So, as we look toward to the 2021 vintage, the event marks a historic milestone: the debut of a year that critics are already calling a “vertical masterpiece.” While Benvenuto Brunello 2021 (the event) originally introduced the resilient 2017s, the 2021 vintage itself – now hitting the world stage in 2026 – is the new crown jewel of the appellation and looks to be a vintage getting global critics very excited.

The 2021 vintage was born from a year of dramatic contrasts, beginning with a sharp spring frost that naturally thinned yields, followed by a warm, stable summer. The resulting wines are defined by their “al dente” structure – vibrant, deep, and remarkably precise. Unlike the solar warmth of 2020 or the operatic power of 2019, the 2021s offer a refreshing return to aromatic transparency, mineral classicism, and nervous energy.  

At this year’s exciting London preview, tasters found Sangiovese in its most elegant form: floral, savoury, and built for decades of cellar ageing. For collectors and enthusiasts, Benvenuto Brunello remains the essential early compass for navigating these releases, celebrating a vintage that perfectly balances Montalcino’s rugged Mediterranean soul with sophisticated, modern finesse.  

Altesino Rosso di Montalcino 2024

Rich plummy nose packed with berry fruits. Fleshy, soft and deliciously full in the mouth.

(Wine Safari Score: 92/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Altesino Brunello di Montalcino 2021

Delicately reductive with saline cassis, black cherry and wood smoke. Sleek mineral tannins, supple, pure and precise with a beautiful balance.

(Wine Safari Score: 95/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Altesino Brunello di Montalcino Vigna Montosili 2021

Richer, broader savoury black berry aromatics. Delicately sappy, showing wood spice, black berries, balsamic and a plummy depth with a telltale salinity. A very complete wine.

(Wine Safari Score: 96/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Caparzo Rosso di Montalcino 2024

Bright and lifted with fragrant candied red cherry fruits. Good depth and fleshy concentration, soft acids and an accessible, generous opulence.

(Wine Safari Score: 91/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Caparzo Brunello di Montalcino 2021

Smoky spicy black cherry notes with hints of violets, wild herbs and wood spice. Finely poised, cool, creamy and elegant with a superb fruit – acidity balance and sufficient creamy tannins.

(Wine Safari Score: 94/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Caparzo Brunello di Montalcino Vigna La Casa 2021

Deep, dark and broody, showing balsamic, black cherry and botte barrel wood spice. Plush, ripe and concentrated, layered with black berries and liquorice over a more prominent structure.

(Wine Safari Score: 95/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Argiano Rosso di Montalcino 2024

Bright, vibrant lifted aromatics, violets, red cherry and a delightful raisined cranberry fragrance. Sweet, plush and slightly reductive and saline, this is a very smart, polished expression.

(Wine Safari Score: 92/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Argiano Brunello di Montalcino 2021

A very expressive aromatics, perfumed, precise and full of pink musk and candied red cherry fruits. Lovely concentration, fleshy mid-palate and a long finish with stony grippy mineral tannins.

(Wine Safari Score: 94+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Argiano Brunello di Montalcino Vigna del Suolo 2021

Aromatics of fragrant pressed violets, lavender and savoury red cherry fruits aged for 24 months in large oak. Intense and focused, tightly textured with powdery tannins and a long, spicy, freshness on this limestone site. Very impressive..

(Wine Safari Score: 96+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Poggio di Sotto Rosso di Montalcino 2022

Lovely vital, savoury, perfumed aromatics with hints of red berries, cured meats and grilled herbs. Beautiful breadth and depth with an extra bit of bottle complexity and textural sophistication. Compact, powerful with a good mineral back bone.

(Wine Safari Score: 94/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Poggio di Sotto Brunello di Montalcino 2021

Intricate aromatics with red and black berry fruits, red liquorice and delicate notes of tar and dried herbs. Compact and textured, there is impressive depth, elegance and understated power. A very serious expression.

(Wine Safari Score: 97+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Famiglia Maté Brunello di Montalcino 2021

A deep broody aromatics show sweet Christmas spices, tar, liquorice, balsamic and botte oak spice notes. Silky soft and precise, there is impressive focus and freshness, a supple fleshy concentration and a cool, harmonious finish with good persistence. Really beautiful wine.

(Wine Safari Score: 96/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Famiglia Maté Brunello do Montalcino Veltha 2021

The complex aromatics reveal Christmas spices, wood bark, quinine, and bramble berry nuances. Plush and mouth coating, the concentration is impressive, the balance and harmony rich, intense and focused. Packs a lot of punch with elegance and sophistication. A real beaut.

(Wine Safari Score: 96+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Famiglia Maté Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 2020

Complex aromatics show plenty of sapidity and botte wood spice, black liquorice, aniseed root and bramble berry nuances. Plush and compact on the palate, revealing notes of balsamic, cured meats and savoury raisined red cherry notes. Power packed and full of mineral grip with a fabulously intricate texture. Truly superb.

(Wine Safari Score: 97/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Frescobaldi Castel Gioconda Brunello di Montalcino 2021

Broad broody aromatics show black cherries, wood smoke, liquorice, and subtle earthy notes. Full and punchy on the palate, but texturally polished and very precise, layered with spicy cherry, limestone minerality and complex Christmas spices.

(Wine Safari Score: 95/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Frescobaldi Castel Giocondo Vigna Ripe al Convento Riserva 2020

The nose reveals broody, tarry, smoky black cherry fruits following to a plush, creamy palate with well integrated acids and a deliciously concentrated tertiary fruit finish. A lot going on here, making for a very notable Reserva style.

(Wine Safari Score: 96/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Il Poggione Rosso di Montalcino 2023

Rich, ripe and lifted with layered aromatics of raspberry ripple, confected red cherry and a delicate sapidity. Quite restrained on the palate, mineral and spicy but showing a well polished red fruited core beneath.

(Wine Safari Score: 91/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Il Poggione Brunello di Montalcino 2021

Aged three years in large oak, the wine shows delicately reductive aromatics packed full of gun smoke, wood embers, tar, black cherry and kelpy salinity. Compact, tight knit and creamy, there’s a real focus and concentration, textural density and a long, tangy finish. Superb.

(Wine Safari Score: 96+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Il Poggione Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 2020

From a 62 year old single vineyard that’s aged for four years in large oak. Plush, complex and intense being full of liquorice, bresaola, cured meats and a creamy, textural, black cherry fruit finish. Dense, powerful and kissed with sweet baking herbs and dried mint leaf nuances on the finish. True class.

(Wine Safari Score: 96/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Fattoria dei Barbi Brunello di Montalcino 2021

A delicately reductive nose shows earthy savoury aromatics embellished with delicate pink musk, raisined red cherries and perfumed potpourri spice. Full, plush and creamy, this carries concentration and weight of fruit, finely balanced by a well-integrated acidity.

(Wine Safari Score: 94/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Fattoria dei Barbi Brunello do Montalcino Vigna del Fiore 2021

First produced in 1981 but not made every year. Aged one year in French oak then transferred to Slavonian oak for a further two years. Deep, broody, brambly aromatics with a savoury earthy depth and raisined cherries. Plush, sweet fruited and quite expansive in the mouth, this has deliciously ripe berry fruits, a notable concentration but also a beautifully tangy acidity on the long finish.

(Wine Safari Score: 96/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Fattoria dei Barbi Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 2020

An extra year of oak, normally around three to three and a half years but with an emphasis on elegance and finesse. Beautifully mineral and tight knit, this is quite a serious Brunello expression allowing a fine stony mineral vein to shine through. Impressive.

(Wine Safari Score: 96/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Uccelliera Brunello di Montalcino 2021

Quite a plush, creamy lactic expression with classical red cherry, cranberry and limestone mineral notes. The minerality is also notable on the palate, framed with grippy tannins, a plush fruit concentration and a delightful black stone fruit finish with impressive power.

(Wine Safari Score: 95+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Fine Wine Safari Brunello di Montalcino 2015 Vintage Series: Part 3 – Sesti…

~ Greg Sherwood MW ~ 4 Comments

The 2015 vintage is a historical year for Brunello di Montalcino that nobody should miss. The wines show impressive precision of vivid fruit, fine tannins and freshness in acidity despite their ripeness and richness which makes them some of the most exciting releases since 2010.

Winemakers in Montalcino were never better prepared to produce outstanding wines in a year like 2015 with their exactness in their vineyards and cellars from fine-tuned canopy management and crop thinning to optical sorting and soft fermentations. So many wine producers in Montalcino made excellent wines in 2015.

A small handful of the wines I tasted are a little bit closed at this early stage, and these will benefit from more cellar ageing. However, the majority of the samples tasted showed softly textured, generous and accessible characteristics that make them beautiful to drink straight out of the gate or with very little aging required. Bottles from the versatile 2015 vintage can go into your cellar for safekeeping or onto your dinner table for near- to medium-term consumption. The choice is yours, and that’s one of the top selling points of 2015 Brunello reds.

Sesti – Without doubt one of the leading producers in Brunello di Montalcino: an estate of 9 hectares under vine which is run by astrologer Giuseppe Sesti and his daughter Elisa. In the vineyard, everything is kept as natural as possible with zero use of herbicides, pesticides, chemical fertiliser and even outside sourced yeasts. The study of astronomy and lunar cycles has also influenced Giuseppe’s approach in the winery – he follows the phases of the moon when it comes to winemaking techniques; only racking wines during a waning of the moon. Ageing of the wines takes place in larger Slavonian oak casks because, according to Sesti, if he is happy with the fruit, the tannins and the overall growing season, then there is no need to mask the wine, but rather preserve the inherent qualities that Sangiovese Grosso draws from these meticulously farmed vineyards.

Castello di Argiano, Sesti’s medieval castle.

Sesti Brunello di Montalcino 2015, 14 Abv.

On the nose this attractive 2015 Brunello shows wonderfully elegant, fragrant notes of wild strawberries, fresh roses and violets that mix with exotic notes of cinnamon, baking cloves and black chocolate spices. Full and generous in the mouth, there is plenty of juicy cherry and red currant fruit intensity that melts in to a complex mélange of liquorice, sweet tobacco, cola and black plum confit. Focused and persistent, this wine has all the building blocks to improve over 8 to 10 years as it mellows in bottle after 39 months ageing in big barrels.

(Wine Safari Score: 95/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Tasting the New Release Gaja Pieve Santa Restituta Brunello di Montalcino 2012 with Giovanni Gaja…

~ Greg Sherwood MW ~ 2 Comments

There are few regions as close to my heart as Brunello di Montalcino. The opulence, the complexity, the age ability, and the sheer magic that the very best examples reveal to their drinkers. I have always been a massive fan of the Gaja Brunello wines ever since I enjoyed the 1996 at a tasting with Gaia Gaja many years ago at Theo Randall’s restaurant. But Since 2007/8, the wines have really started to reach new heights of quality.


The 2012 vintage marks another change in the production of Gaja Brunello with all the wines being vinified in 500 litre tonneau instead of the usual mix between large barrels, barrique and tonneau. This move, Giovanni insists, will give the wines greater elegance, purity and textural finesse.


2012 was indeed a warmer, dryer vintage producing rich, opulent wines with higher alcohol and massive extract. Hence the decision was taken to christen the new oak tonneau in this vintage and blend all the Cru’s into just one estate wine. So like Gaja’s Barbaresco 2012 which included all three Cru’s, the Pieve Santa Restituta Brunello 2012 is a super cuvee that includes the fruit harvested from Rennina and their excellent five-hectare Cru site of Sugarille with galestro limestone soils and all-southern exposures. Suckling has already called the 2012 Brunello vintage “A Rock Star Vintage”… so expect big, dense, showy wines.


Tasting Note: The 2012 is a dark, dense seductive beast. Richly fruited with a lush, fragrant bouquet, there is a lot to this wine which reveals the profound, complex notes of a warmer, more exotic vintage in Montalcino. The nose offers up black cherry, kirsch liquor, cherry blossom perfume, and vanilla and licorice stick. There is a massive textural concentration and opulence immediately evident. This might be a first date but it’s not a wine shy to reveal all its assets. Vibrant layers of raisined black cherry, cranberry and forest strawberries emerge in a luxurious, opulent, hedonistic expression. But the wine never looses is varietal typicity of cherry stone fruits, licorice, aniseed root, dark damson plum spice and sweet tannins. Along side all the textural palate richness is a vibrant, fresh, cherry acidity that moves in parallel to the rich, harmonious fruit. A very generous wine that finishes broad and long with the most pretty bruleed, aniseed and white toast finish. Drink from release and over 8 to 10 years. 

(Wine Safari Score: 94+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)